Health and Safety Assurance

The Health and Safety (H&S) Assurance function is responsible for monitoring the appointed Principal Contractors and Elected Clients against key criteria including:

  • Legislation and associated best practice guidance
  • Approved and Joint Codes of Practice
  • The Works Information (contractual arrangements) document
  • Crossrail policies and processes

Over 100 audits are undertaken each year to help ensure that Principal Contractors are constantly performing to the highest possible standard. The H&S Assurance function works closely with the Crossrail Internal Audit function and follows Crossrail’s Audit Procedure. This includes developing an audit schedule, identifying additional areas for assessment ensuring a consistent level of auditor competence, producing audit reports, recording significant audit findings and also tracking the progress of Corrective Action Requests (CARs).

The H&S Assurance Team devises an audit plan each year, in collaboration with the Internal Audit function, Project Managers, other H&S Managers and the H&S Director. This ensures that the audit plan focusses on appropriate risks (as identified by HSPI, incident trends etc.), key pieces of legislation (including legislative updates) and targeted areas of industry-wide and Crossrail-specific H&S risks. A key element of the audit and assurance programme has been the collaborative approach taken by the H&S Assurance team in carrying out the audits and supporting the contractors to resolve any issues.  Lessons learned around the collaborative approach to audit and the assurance assessment regime are shared in the learning legacy.

As an outcome of the audits, two best practice guides were created on Construction Railways Operations and Construction Fire Safety.

The H&S Assurance Team ensures that all construction projects are designed, planned, operated and handed over in a manner that considers Health and Safety at all stages and in a manner that complies with the Construction Design Management (CDM) regulations: 2015. A key part of Crossrail’s CDM Strategy has been the successful use of Elected Clients and the logic and implementation of this process is captured in the learning legacy for use by other projects considering using Elected Clients. Additionally the complexity of a multi-site programme and the implications for CDM arrangements are reviewed in the multi-site arrangements learning legacy paper.

In addition to the above, the H&S Assurance Team is in regular liaison with external agencies and has seconded members of staff from the London Fire Brigade and the Metropolitan Police in the team to ensure that specific expertise is provided in the areas of emergency response and business continuity. This is covered in the Emergency Services Liaison section.

H&S Assurance Documents:

Summary Publication date Document Type
CDM 2015 – Multi-Site Arrangements

CDM 2015 – Multi-Site Arrangements

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

The CDM challenge for the Crossrail project was to maintain a consistent approach to CDM compliance on more than 40 diverse projects. These were spread over a wide geographic area and consisted of challenging projects and work sites varying from green field sites to tunnelling under central London to new build faciliti...

14/03/2017 Case Study
Construction  (Design and Management) (CDM) Procedure

Construction (Design and Management) (CDM) Procedure

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

This procedure describes the Control Points used by Crossrail to provide assurance that all applicable Construction (Design and Management) Regulations (CDM) duties have been discharged. Crossrail Ltd (CRL) has made a commitment to excellence in Health and Safety. This commitment is defined in the Health and Safety Sta...

14/03/2017 Good Practice Document
Designing for Health and Safety Procedure

Designing for Health and Safety Procedure

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

This procedure sets out the mechanism by which Crossrail undertakes its design responsibilities as Principal Designer duty holder under the CDM 2015 Regulations and the requirements for Designers working for Crossrail in various parts of its supply chain. Its purpose is to ensure comprehensive design risk management pr...

14/03/2017 Good Practice Document
Health and Safety File Guide

Health and Safety File Guide

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

This document outlines the Crossrail requirements for Health & Safety Files to ensure a consistent approach to creating these files. This approach aligns with the requirements of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations and The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 ‘L series’ guidanc...

14/03/2017 Good Practice Document
Fire Alerts

Fire Alerts

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

The learning from this partnership has been used by Crossrail and the LFB to produce fire safety guidance bulletins for contractors, and publications free of charge for the wider construction sector to inform fire safety standards around the world. Below are a selection of Health and Safety Alerts that were developed s...

14/03/2017 Good Practice Document
Collaborative Approach to Health and Safety Assurance Activities

Collaborative Approach to Health and Safety Assurance Activities

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

Traditionally, assurance activities have consisted of legislation/contract focussed audits, potentially leading to Corrective Action Requests (CARs), which the Contractor closes without assistance. Crossrail assurance audits were designed to trigger collaboration between Client and Contractor; the audits are (in additi...

27/09/2016 Micro-report
Crossrail’s Approach to Health and Safety Assurance Assessment

Crossrail’s Approach to Health and Safety Assurance Assessment

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

Health and safety assurance assessments allowed the Crossrail H&S assurance team to react to evolving issues with a flexible assessment outside of the formal audit programme. Some assurance assessments were tightly focused on specific contracts’ emerging issues, whilst others were programme-wide, where issues aff...

27/09/2016 Micro-report
Elected Clients

Elected Clients

Topic area: Health and Safety Assurance

The CDM Regulations make provision for a Client organisation to nominate another organisation (with their agreement) to carry out a complete package of works on their behalf. The nominated organisation is formally known as an Elected Client. During the project, Crossrail nominated a number of Elected Clients to carry o...

26/02/2016 Case Study
Crossrail LFB Emergency Services Liaison

Crossrail LFB Emergency Services Liaison

Topic area: Emergency Services

The London Fire Brigade have officers seconded to Crossrail to support activities ensuring that sites are as fire-safe as possible. This paper discusses lessons learned from the London Fire Brigade on collaborative working with Crossrail and recommendations for future major projects as well as sharing the various requi...

24/10/2017 Case Study
Fixed Fire-Fighting Systems

Fixed Fire-Fighting Systems

Topic area: Mechanical, Electrical & Public Health

Due to the size and complexity of the new Crossrail transport system, providing a compliant BS 9990 fixed fire-fighting system has its challenges to provide and assist the fire brigade, as well as protection for emergency personnel. Crossrail require installation of a fixed fire-fighting system in all Central Stations ...

30/09/2017 Technical Paper
Crossrail’s approach to Police liaison

Crossrail’s approach to Police liaison

Topic area: Emergency Services

Having a serving police officer attached to the project allowed Crossrail to have a single point of contact for all police liaison across 16 Metropolitan Police Boroughs and 6 Police Services. High levels of collaboration were evident from all of the project contractors and other stakeholders. This paper outlines the r...

14/03/2017 Micro-report
Good Practice Bulletins

Good Practice Bulletins

Topic area: Health and Safety improvements

These Good Practice Bulletins were issued across the programme in support of continuous improvement, providing examples of innovation and good practice from Crossrail’s contractors, allowing others to benefit and utilise the ideas themselves. This selection of Good Practice Bulletins have been shared as many are...

27/09/2016 Good Practice Document
Audit Procedure

Audit Procedure

Topic area: Audit & Assurance

The Audit Procedure sets out how Crossrail’s audit team implements Compliance audits and Contractor audits. Download the Audit Procedure here. The procedure includes the following related documents: Corrective Action Report (CAR) Form Audit Report Template Auditor Application Form...

26/02/2016 Good Practice Document
Best Practice Guides

Best Practice Guides

Topic area: Health and Safety improvements

Crossrail is committed to sharing best practices, not just with contractors working on the project, but also with the wider construction industry, leaving a lasting legacy.

26/02/2016 Good Practice Document
Health and Safety Alerts

Health and Safety Alerts

Topic area: Health and Safety improvements

A collection of single page Health and Safety Alerts. These are issued across the programme when there is a specific safety issue/incident which, without action being taken, could result in a serious or fatal injury. Health and Safety Alerts can be issued on topics related to dangerous equipment, processes, procedures ...

26/02/2016 Good Practice Document
Construction Site – Fire Safety

Construction Site – Fire Safety

Topic area: Health and Safety improvements

Best Practice Guides were produced in collaboration with Crossrail’s Tier 1 contractors and other industry specialist bodies e.g. the Fire Protection Association. Guides were produced in response to specific project activities and were aimed at raising Health and Safety standards through the  sharing of knowledge an...

26/02/2016 Good Practice Document
Design of Crossrail’s Precast Tunnel Linings for Fire

Design of Crossrail’s Precast Tunnel Linings for Fire

Topic area: Civil Engineering

This paper describes the approach taken to design Crossrail’s precast concrete running tunnel linings for structural stability during a severe fire incident. In recent decades there have been a number of fire incidents in road and rail tunnels which have caused severe damage to the lining structures. These incidents ...

03/11/2014 Technical Paper